More specifically, the present invention relates to a cigarette packing machine of the type comprising a packing conveyor having a number of packing pockets, each of which is designed to receive and house a respective wrapped group of cigarettes and a respective blank, and travels along a packing path extending through a loading station, where the blanks are loaded into the respective packing pockets; a feed unit for feeding the blanks along a feed path through the loading station, and which comprises a feed conveyor travelling along the feed path and having a number of feed pockets, each designed to receive and house a respective blank; and a transfer device located at the loading station and comprising a pusher movable back and forth along a transfer path to transfer the blanks from the respective feed pockets to the respective packing pockets in a given transfer direction. A machine of this type is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,993.
In known machines of the type described above, the blanks are partly folded by inserting them inside the respective packing pockets.
Normally, and especially when the packing pockets have no movable walls, the above folding method calls for relatively prolonged stops of the packing pockets at the loading station.